Sorrow found me when I was young
by winter machine
Summary: After the funeral, Sam seeks the real eulogy - in a slightly different way.   Sam's POV


**Author's Note**

This is my version of the Addison-Sam post-eulogy confrontation. I wanted to see what I could do using some of the actual dialogue from the scene, but changing the tone. I wanted to make sure I posted it before tomorrow's episode makes me any angrier at Sam...

* * *

She's sitting straight-backed on the bed when he opens the door.

"That was a nice eulogy," he says.

"Thank you."

He closes the door behind him, emboldened with advice, two drinks, and a little bit of fear. "Now I want to hear the real one."

She's on her feet in a second, already halfway past him. "I need a drink."

"Addison, wait," he lowers his voice and she stops.

"Sam. I do not have time for this," she says in that cool alien voice, looking past him.

He approaches her slowly, cursing himself for almost forgetting to take all advice with a grain of salt. There's pushing, and then there's pushing. This is Addison and he knows her better. Knows not to crowd her, impose on her.

"Just five minutes."

"Sam," she starts again to sidestep him. He doesn't block her.

"Five minutes, Addison," he coaxes. "Just let me be with you for five minutes before we have to go back to...all of that," he gestures vaguely toward the stairs.

A wary look crosses her face for an instant, and then she schools her features into the Stepford mask once more.

"I appreciate your concern," she says carefully. "I do. But there are people downstairs."

"They're all occupied. We can take five minutes. Please, Addison. Sit down. Talk to me." He gestures toward the bed and she backs away from him.

"I don't want to talk," she says icily.

"Okay. Then we'll just sit." He studies her face. There are shadows under the carefully applied makeup around her eyes.

She turns away, plucking at the chignon pulled tightly enough to stretch her eyebrows.

"Addison," he says gently.

"I need to fix my hair." He watches her struggle with a pin, her hands uncharacteristically clumsy. He covers one lightly with his own.

"Let me help you."

She still won't meet his eye, but she allows him to guide her toward the bed. She perches stiffly on the bed and he sits behind her, assessing the tight knot in her hair. He touches her shoulder carefully. The muscles under his hand are rigid and he has to force himself not to grab her, to hold her and demand that she tell him the truth, to let him help her carry it. But while he may not know to help her in this moment, he is confident about the wrong way to help her.

"Undo it," she says suddenly, low and urgent. "It's too tight. I want it out."

This he can do. He's thankful for the years Maya demanded one complicated hairstyle after another, the task falling to him when Naomi had an early call.

He can manage clips and barrettes and braids.

He slides a pin from the tight knot. It takes four more before a lock of red hair uncoils. He unwraps it carefully, smooths it down. She's silent as he continues to work, rummaging gently through the tightly pinned chignon. He doesn't touch anything except her hair, occasionally tilting her head gently to one side or the other to access a particurly deeply wedged pin.

He can see her shoulders relax, very slightly, as he loosens her hair. He combs through it carefully, smoothing the strands. There's a small pile of pins next to him.

"Well?"

It's so quiet he has to lean forward to hear it. "Yeah, baby?"

"You said you wanted to talk."

Right. He had. He's so grateful she's letting him touch her that he almost forgot he came in to talk.

"I do want to talk," he says. He continues to sift through her hair, locating each pin and removing it carefully.

"Not about Bizzy."

"Okay," he says.

"I can't."

"I know," he soothes, unknots a tangle near her scalp. "There are some things that are secrets. I get that. I do."

He's silent for long moments, working to loosen a particularly snarled pin.

"My father can only hear out of one ear. Not sure if you remember," he says finally.

Addison nods automatically under his hands. If she's surprised at the topic she doesn't let on. He recalls that she danced with his father at his and Naomi's wedding, talked into his good side and threw her head back and laughed when his father said "I love a tall woman in high heeled shoes." Sam smiles at the memory. His own mother was half a head taller than her husband.

"His left ear," he continues. "I grew up thinking he was born that way. Turns out my grandfather, the one who carved that great train set for Maya - it was him. My father was deaf in one ear from when my grandfather tossed him down the stairs some drunk night. We had a viewing and memorial when Poppa Louie died and practically the whole church ended up in our living room, swapping stories. And beer. You know," he says, before realizing she probably doesn't. "Everyone going on about Poppa Louie, what a great guy he was. The roof he fixed after the neighbors' fire. The toys he whittled for the children's hospital. My father, you know, he sat with them, talked all about what a prince he was. Even stood up in church for him. He didn't say anything about what he was like when he drank. Didn't tell them he used to kick them around the house. I didn't know anything either. Not 'til I was grown, when I was about to have a family of my own."

Addison is silent, listening.

"I know he told my mother, though. My mother knew. I'm thinking, maybe that's how Dad was able to stand up in the church and sit there in our house and do what he did, because he had someone to hear the real eulogy."

He frees the last pin and sets it down. Cards his fingers through her hair, lifting it off her neck, carefully letting it go again.

"Like I said, people keep family secrets," he says. "I get that. They have their reasons, and they get up and say what they need to say to the world. I understand. It's just...someone needs to hear the truth. Someone needs to hear the real eulogy. The right person."

Cautiously he untangles one hand from her hair, rests it lightly on her shoulder. Her muscles are tense again under his hand.

"It's me," he says. "I'm that someone, Addison. I want to hear the real eulogy. I want you to tell it to me."

"Nobody kicked me down the stairs, Sam," she says.

"Not all the scars our parents leave are visible," he says. "Doesn't mean there's not a real eulogy. One that you need to tell someone."

"I...don't think I can." Her voice is as tight as her muscles.

"I think you can. I think you need to." He speaks softly, bending his head until his cheek brushes the side of her head. "I can take it," he says. "Whatever it is. I'm not backing off. I'm here."

"I want to hear the real eulogy," he repeats. He's still running his fingers through her hair. "I want to hear it from the woman I love."

He hears her breath catch and lowers his head further, lips against the cool skin of her temple. "The woman I love," he says again.

Her head drops back against his shoulder. He wishes he could see her face. He smooths her hair back, trying not to overwhelm her with contact, not to give more than she is ready to take.

"She didn't want me to," she says. "I can't."

"You can." He presses his lips to her temple again, holds her shoulders carefully. Her body is rigid under his hands, her jaw clenched.

"It's okay," he murmurs. "Take it slow." He watches her in profile out of the corner of his eye as she fight tears, fights so hard sweat breaks out on her brow as she breathes raggedly against him. She's trying to say something now, words caught in her uneven breaths. He pushes sweat-dampened hair from her face. "It's okay."

"No!" Cords of muscle jump in her neck. He feels her back tense further against his chest. "Don't... want ... to cry," she gasps.

"No, baby, you cry if you need to," he says. "You should cry. You have feelings." She shakes her head hard against him and he speaks more firmly. "You have _feelings_, Addison. You may not want to, but you do. You're a real person with real feelings. Even here. Even in this house. So you cry."

And then she breaks, sobbing harder than he's ever heard her. She's turning to press her face to his shoulder, choking for breath. He wraps his arms around her fully now, absorbing the force of her grief.

It's a long time before she speaks again. Keening gives way to quiet weeping, and she curls against him, breath hitching, fingers clenched in his suit jacket.

"It wasn't an aneurysm," she says finally. They are leaning back against the headboard now, a tangle of limbs, her black crepe dress partially hitched up and Sam's once-crisp collar limp with tears. He strokes her hair. "I know."

"She killed herself, Sam. Bizzy killed herself."

"Oh, Addison," he breathes into her hair; he suspected it, but hearing it is still different somehow.

"She killed herself and she didn't want anyone to know."

"I'm sorry, baby." She's already cried out, exhausted, and he runs his hands lightly down her arms. "I'm so sorry."

"I thought I could help her. I knew she was lost with grief, that she was... out to sea."

"I know," he kisses her hair. "I know you did. You did everything you could. You can't help everyone. Sometimes they -"

"Sometimes they drown," Addison says quietly.

"Archer should know," she says, breaking another period of silence. "I need to tell him."

"Okay," he says. She's calmer now, her breathing regular. He doesn't know how long they've been curled together, only that it's dark outside, and his left wrist, pillowed just under Addison's chin, is asleep.

"It has to be tonight. Before we bury her."

"Do you want me to come with -"

"No. Thank you, but I need to do this myself." Her voice is quiet, but strong. Familiar.

She sits up, starting the process of putting herself back together. Her red hair is damp and tangled around her face, full and wild from Sam's ministrations. She touches it gingerly and gives him a sad half-smile, the first he's recognized since he saw her frozen-featured face framed in the doorway of her parents' house the previous day.

She stands, smoothing down her dress. "I'm a mess," she says, combing her fingers through her hair, eyeing her reflecting in the antique mirror. Sam scoops a handful of discarded hairpins from her bedside table and offers them to her, stretching a kink in his neck.

"Want a hand?"

Green-glass eyes meet his. "How do you even know how...?"

"Maya," he smiles.

"Of course." She finds a brush on the dresser and makes quick work of her hair, twisting it back into a chignon and pinning it, giving him a lovely view of the elegant lines of her neck.

"You're a good father," she says, still examining her face in the mirror, buffing her flushed cheeks with powder.

He kisses her exposed neck. "You're going to be a good mother," he says softly. She bows her head, he rests his hands on her hips, and they stand together for a moment, just breathing.

"I should go find Archer," she says finally, and he catches her hand as she starts to pull away, looks hard at her face.

She looks exhausted. But she looks like herself.

"I'll be here when you get back," he says.

"I know you will."

* * *

(Lyric from The National, _Sorrow_)


End file.
